4′33′′, ideas, and medium in appreciating conceptual art

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Abstract

How does John Cage’s conceptual work 4′33′′ communicate its meaning and how can we appreciate it? In this paper, I develop two competing interpretations to tackle these questions. First, drawing on Peter Goldie and Elisabeth Schellekens’s account of conceptual art (‘conceptualism’) and on Cage’s commentary on 4′33′′, I elaborate an overlooked idea that the work creates a new art form of conceptual music, which can be appreciated exclusively through the ideas it conveys. However, I argue that the conceptualist interpretation of 4′33′′ does not help us understand the work’s point, because it reveals a set of inconsistent claims about music and listening. The second interpretation draws on Julian Dodd’s view that the physical medium is irreducible in appreciating conceptual artworks (‘experientialism’). I develop this view by introducing a notion of a gesture to expand on how the performance of 4′33′′ contributes to its aesthetic appreciation and propose an alternative interpretation of the work’s meaning.

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APA

Šterbáková, D. (2021). 4′33′′, ideas, and medium in appreciating conceptual art. Estetika, 58(1), 57–71. https://doi.org/10.33134/EEJA.253

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